title: Multiaxial mechanical properties and constitutive modeling of human adipose tissue: a basis for preoperative simulations in plastic and reconstructive surgery.
abstract: A preoperative simulation of soft tissue deformations during plastic and reconstructive surgery is desirable to support the surgeon's planning and to improve surgical outcomes. The current development of constitutive adipose tissue models, for the implementation in multilayer computational frameworks for the simulation of human soft tissue deformations, has proved difficult because knowledge of the required mechanical parameters of fat tissue is limited. Therefore, for the first time, human abdominal adipose tissues were mechanically investigated by biaxial tensile and triaxial shear tests. The results of this study suggest that human abdominal adipose tissues under quasi-static and dynamic multiaxial loadings can be characterized as a nonlinear, anisotropic and viscoelastic soft biological material. The nonlinear and anisotropic features are consequences of the material's collagenous microstructure. The aligned collagenous septa observed in histological investigations causes the anisotropy of the tissue. A hyperelastic model used in this study was appropriate to represent the quasi-static multiaxial mechanical behavior of fat tissue. The constitutive parameters are intended to serve as a basis for soft tissue simulations using the finite element method, which is an apparent method for obtaining promising results in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomechanics, Center of Biomedical Engineering, Graz University of Technology, Austria.
authors.forename: Gerhard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sommer
authors.forename: Maximilian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eder
authors.forename: Laszlo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kovacs
authors.forename: Heramb
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pathak
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bonitz
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mueller
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Regitnig
authors.forename: Gerhard A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Holzapfel
mesh_terms: D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000601:surgery*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008954:Models, Biological; D011300:Preoperative Care; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D013518:Surgery, Plastic; D013718:Tensile Strength; D013816:Thermodynamics
keywords: Biaxial tensile test; Constitutive parameters; Human abdominal adipose tissue; Multiaxial mechanical properties; Triaxial shear test